This article sets forth objective standards by which the wargame designer may establish the relative capabilities of competing artillery types. It outlines a methodology for harmonizing the range data for different artilleries reported on divergent and imprecisely defined bases ("effective," "maximum," "maximum effective," etc.) as well as for estimating the ranges of guns that receive little attention from the usual sources. More, it addresses the vexing question of how to relate high-angle and flat-trajectory ranges in an eighteenth century context. Finally, it ties together the effects of range, muzzle velocity, throw-weight, rate of fire, and frontspace-occupied-per-piece in the determination of the casualtymaking capacities of homogeneous and mixed batteries.

Persons possessed of a more thorough understanding of the science of ballistics than that pretended by the author will find his treatments thereof a bit thin. However, this paper is offered not to provide instruction in gunnery, but for the far more modest purpose of equipping the reader with some clear and simple guidelines for the devising of tables of fire effect for wargame use.

Comparative Performance of Seven Years War Artilleries

Introduction
Relative Ranges
Relative Destructive Power within Range
Concluding Caveats and Sources

This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com